Smoke

When I’m
thinking I like to smoke. My wife never let me smoke in the house,
she never liked me smoking at all. One year she got me a Zippo
lighter with “Smokers Suck” stamped on the side, I took the hint
and I got into the habit of doing my thinking in the great outdoors.
That’s how I found myself on a lonely high street at 4am, smoking
my last cigarette and wondering where I could get some more. I was
cold and I had the beginnings of a first class migraine coming. I
needed to go home and sleep but I knew that sleep wouldn’t come
tonight. I was working on a case, although it felt more like the case
was working on me. I knew I was missing something important but I
just couldn’t figure out what. So I just kept on walking and
smoking and waiting for inspiration to hit me.

The thing
was, this case should have been simple, we knew exactly what was
going on but we still couldn’t get to the bottom of it. Someone was
targeting people with serious money, breaking into their
well-protected mansions and ripping off whatever they had worth
taking. Whenever one of them called the police we would go round and
see the same MO each time, the thieves had gone straight for the main
attraction, whether it was jewels, the family Gainsborough, bonds
whatever, plus whatever else they could carry out of there. After the
first couple of robberies we started seeing some of the items showing
up in pawn shops and through known fences, but never the big stuff.
The paintings, the bonds, the jewels, they were never seen again.
There were always plenty of fingerprints but we could never match
them, which was strange because these were pretty tough places to
crack. Any one capable of getting in there should have had a bit of
form. They should have been known to us.

I took a
last draw on my cigarette and threw it down into the flooded gutter,
then something caught my eye - it was a mobile phone, still dry on
the wet pavement, and it was ringing. I picked it up and answered it.

“Hello.”,
I said.

“Hello
Mr Chapel, I have a message for you.”

The voice
on the other end was female and sounded stilted, like she was reading
something out.

“What
message, who is this?”

“It’s
from Pauline, she says to meet her at Coopers Wharf.”

I threw
the phone right through a pizza shop window.

Pauline
was my wife, she worked as a reporter for the paper here until she
killed by a drunk driver seven years ago.

Whoever
it was had really touched a nerve mentioning her. I was so furious
that I didn’t think how strange it was that that phone had rung
just as I had passed by, or that the caller had known it would be me
who answered, or that they knew just what to say to make me react. I
didn’t think at all, I just ran.

I got to
Coopers wharf still boiling with rage, the years and the cigarettes
hadn’t been good to me though and I ended up bent double in a
coughing fit that made me see stars. Once I could breathe again I
straightened up and took a look around.

Coopers
wharf was where the scum of the city washed up, the wharfside had
declined along with the heavy industry that used to support this
city. Now it was home to a few rusty barges, some half-dead junkies
and a whole lot of rats. Tonight it looked like it was just me and
the rats, the place was dark and deserted, I could just about make
out the shapes of the old loading gear rusting in the dark. There was
no street lighting down here, the things that went on at Coopers
Wharf were best done in the dark.

“Mr
Chapel?” I jumped at the sound of the voice behind me, it was the
same woman as before. She was in her early twenties, dressed in
office clothes, smart but slightly dishevelled. She was holding a
mobile phone in front of her. Suddenly her face was lit up as the
phone’s screen came on, she looked petrified.

“You
must follow me.” She was reading messages from the phone, “I have
a message for you.”

“Screw
you!” I shouted into the night, “If you want to speak to me come
down here and do it.”

The girls
face lit up again, another message.

“You
must follow me,” she read shakily, “otherwise I will kill this
girl.”

There was
a crack and a bullet thudded into the ground about 3 feet away from
where she stood. I couldn’t make out the gunman in the gloom, there
were plenty of places to hide around here though, he could be
anywhere.

I
followed her into a rotting warehouse, the floor was littered with
broken glass and it stank. A voice came out of the gloom somewhere to
the left of me,

“I
don’t like loose ends Chapel”, I hadn’t heard that voice for
nearly ten years but I recognised it instantly.

“Harrison,”,
I said, “I thought you were dead”

“Not
dead Chapel,” he replied, ”just sleeping.”

Harrison
was a bent copper from way back, he’d been caught taking bribes and
extorting protection from local businesses but the rumours were that
he was up to much more. He never made it to court – too many
witnesses backed out of giving evidence. He would still have gone
down if Pauline could have testified, she’d been on his case for
years but the paper would never publish what she had for fear of
upsetting some people in high places. With her death the case against
him collapsed and he just disappeared, until now.

“Harrison,
you bastard…” I moved towards him when he loomed out of the
shadows with his gun drawn, without warning he shot the girl dead in
front of me.

“You’ve
killed her! What did she have to do with this?”

“I
didn’t kill her Chapel, you did. You lured her down here and killed
her. The police will find that the last number she called was to a
phone with your prints on it, they’ll find a gun that shot her with
your prints on it and they’ll find you dead at the scene. Suicide –
it was all too much for you after your wife died.”

“But
why? Why did you come back?”

“Come
back? I’ve never been away. Who do you think has been relieving the
well-to-do of this town of their silverware?”

“That
was all you?”

“Of
course it was, although I was going to have to stop soon, running
short of assistants you see, they only have a short shelf life.”

“You
killed them, Jesus Harrison you’re a monster, there must have been
over 30 burglaries.”

“I told
you I didn’t like loose ends, and now I’m going to cut off one
more. I should have done you when I got your wife, still better late
than never.”

He
levelled the gun at my chest and shot, the pain was agonising at
first then I slipped out of consciousness.

The next
thing I knew I was in a strange bed with a nurse leaning over me
asking if I knew my name. The bullet had hit the lighter in my jacket
pocket, I had a few cracked ribs and some bruising that had to be
seen to be believed but otherwise I was OK.

Now we
knew that Harrison was still at large we'd catch up with him sooner
or later, for now I just needed a cigarette.